Northwest Huntsville wants more restaurants, grocers (Outlook 2013)

View full sizeLooking out the window of Starbucks on North Memorial Parkway at the intersection of Mastin Lake Road. (Lee Roop/lroop@al.com)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Local government leaders and economic planners have largely dropped "northwest Huntsville" from their mental map of Huntsville. Modern leaders divide the old northwest into "north" and "west" along the lines of current City Council districts 1 and 5.

But "northwest Huntsville" was a real place on the social and political map of Huntsville for decades, and it remains a real place in the minds of many who live in or grew up in the area. When they think of it, and for the purpose of this article, the northwest's boundaries are defined generally as University Drive on the south, Memorial Parkway on the east and Sparkman Avenue on the west. This is also largely - but not exclusively -- the area covered by the zip code 35810.

The northwest was one of the first areas of Huntsville developed into modern post-World War II subdivisions for the Redstone Arsenal and NASA workers pouring into the city in the 1950s. Before the northwest was divided into subdivisions of brick homes, workers lived in Five Points, downtown, the medical district and other pre-war communities. From its early years through the 1960s and 1970s, the northwest was predominantly white. Today, it is predominantly African-American.

Commercial development in the area centers on the main thoroughfares and smaller intersections. University Drive, Jordan Lane and north Memorial Parkway have been busy commercial corridors for decades, but new upscale commercial growth has frequently bypassed them for areas farther south and west. Still, there has been development, including a Lowe's home store on North Memorial Parkway at Mastin Lake Road, the Costco-Home Deport complex on the Parkway just north of University, and a new Wal-Mart and surrounding shopping complex on Sparkman Avenue just west of the Parkway. In the past few years, a Starbucks has opened at the intersection of Mastin Lake Road and the Parkway across from a popular - and new -- Gander Mountain outdoors store. In the last few months, a Dunkin' Donuts and Five Guys hamburgers opened near Costco.

This view of the new overpass linking Research Park Boulevard in Huntsville to Martin Luther King Boulevard shows some of the land along Jordan Lane suitable for development. (Lee Roop/lroop@al.com)

There is also some new development planned. A Wal-Mart Market will soon occupy the northeast corner of Jordan Lane and Oakwood Avenue, a Dollar General will open farther south on Jordan on the site of a favorite restaurant from the 1960s and '70s called Mikado, and families who own land near the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Jordan Lane are working with private planners to develop what could be a valuable intersection now that an overpass has bridged Jordan Lane to link MLK with Research Park Boulevard.

But city economic development director Michelle Jordan says northwest area residents want more. They want more sit-down restaurants, and they want more upscale grocery stores like those in other areas of the city. Jordan is sympathetic and says the area is "a particular interest in our office." But her hopes to meet those desires have been seasoned by the understanding that, in post-recession America, data rules, not anyone's notion of fairness.

What Jordan means is that, while the city tries hard to support development in older areas like the northwest, modern economic investment turns on hard facts. Jordan notes that some of the same issues affecting the northwest - abandoned or under-used service roads alongside the city's new Parkway overpasses - also face south Huntsville.

Retailers have access now to data inconceivable just a few years ago, Jordan said. She tells of a meeting at which a planner pointed to individual houses on a projector screen and rattled off facts about the race, income and interests of the people who lived in each one. Retailers know, for example, that the intersection of Airport Road and Whitesburg Drive recorded the most Visa Gold credit card swipes in the state of Alabama during one month last year. That's an economic magnet that needs no city assistance.

This land at the intersection of Oakwood Avenue and Jordan Lane in northwest Huntsville will soon house a Wal-Mart Market. (Lee Roop/lroop@al.com)

Armed with that level of data, Jordan said retailers can put a pin on a map and draw a circle representing a five-minute drive. Is the income inside that circle sufficient to support their business? Do shopping patterns in the area indicate a market for their product? Can they make money? The result is often retailers "want to go where others have done well," Jordan said, that is why restaurants seem to open at the Whitesburg/Airport intersection monthly, why Providence is adding new housing units and commercial development regularly, and why Bridge Street is filling in its lake to make room for more stores.

What would it take to change the equation? City Councilman Will Culver's District 5 takes in the western part of northwest Huntsville, and he says the city has to create something unique there to draw business. Imagine the impact of a Cheesecake Factory near Memorial Parkway and Mastin Lake Road, Culver said. "People would come from all over Huntsville," he said. Councilman Richard Showers, who represents most of north Huntsville, was unavailable to comment for this story due to health issues.

Culver believes the city must "make some special concessions for businesses to come to north Huntsville." It's an obvious choice now to go south or farther west where the streets are newer and nicer, "ingress and egress are easier and it's more aesthetically pleasing, more cosmetically perfect," Culver said. Why should businesses go north? Culver answered his own question. "If you give me some kind of tax incentive, or the city has some land they could donate, or more infrastructure, now north Huntsville is becoming more attractive."

Jordan says the city is ready to offer road and infrastructure improvements and whatever help it can. But when it turns to incentives like Culver is proposing, she says it's a slippery slope.

But what is the alternative? Jordan and other city leaders are concerned about new development that leaves North Memorial Parkway and South Memorial Parkway near Haysland Square dotted with empty buildings. And Culver makes the point that University Drive between Memorial Parkway and Jordan Lane used to be the city's "restaurant row." The area still has restaurants and draws visitors, but the hottest restaurant markets now are University near Research Park Boulevard, Bridge Street, the Airport Road-Whitesburg intersection, Valley Bend at Jones Farm and U.S. 72 through Madison.

Is it a natural evolution that can't be guided by city government? Or does government need to do more in areas such as the old northwest? That will be a discussion for the coming decade.